I would like to propose a discussion of the third section of Dogen's "Genjo Koan." I'm slowly, slowly reading the Aitken and Tanahashi translation in Moon in a Dewdrop and have been rereading the Genjo Koan fascicle for the last few days. If you don't have a version handy, fear not: you can read the GK in eight English translations including Aitken and Tanahashi's on this very useful website.

Here are three versions of the third section. First, the most recent Aitken & Tanahashi:

3. When you see forms or hear sounds, fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharma intimately. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illumin[at]ed, the other side is dark.*
The footnote at the end of the section in Moon reads:

In direct realization subject and object include each other. In "darkness" everything is included and there is no sense of boundaries.
Here's the Waddell and Abe translation from that website:

3. Seeing forms and hearing sounds with body and mind as one, they make them intimately their own and fully know them. But it is not like a reflection in a mirror, it is not like the moon on the water. When they realize one side, the other side is in darkness.
And Nishijima:

3. Even if we use our whole body and mind to look at forms, and even if we use our whole body and mind to listen to sounds, perceiving them directly, [our human perception] can never be like the reflection of an image in a mirror, or like the water and the moon. When we affirm one side, we are blind to the other side.
Though I'm not sure what it gets me, I did line up the "sides" in the different translations:

  • one side is illumin[at]ed; the other side is dark
    realize one side; the other side is in darkness
    affirm one side; blind to the other side


I'm not sure I have anything precisely to say about this, nor can I find my way to a question -- thus my interest in prompting some discussion! For starters, I'm in the dark about the darkness.... :?